Phil Gordon - Poker: The Real Deal

POKER: THE REAL DEAL

BY PHIL GORDON AND JONATHAN GROTENSTEIN

SIMON SPOTLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT

An imprint of Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Text copyright 2004 by Phil Gordon and Jonathan Grotenstein All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON SPOTLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT

and related logo are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gordon, Phil, 1970

Poker: the real deal / by Phil Gordon and Jonathan Grotenstein.1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-689-87590-8 (ISBN-13: 978-0-689-87590-8)

eISBN-13: 978-1-416-90577-6

1. Poker. I. Grotenstein, Jonathan, 1970 II. Title.

GV1251.G67 2004

795.412dc22

2004011656

This work is dedicated to the wonderful woman who taught me to play poker and much, much more, my great-aunt, Marie Lib Elizabeth Lucas. Although she can no longer call five-card draw, nothing wild except the dealer, her memory is with me in every tournament and every side game.

In our last poker game, just a week before she died, Lib beat me out of a $1.50 pot. She gleefully turned over what was a stone cold bluff, and then proceeded to tell the entire wing of the hospital that she had taken me for my last dollar. With Lib, the pots werent big, but the lessons and love were huge.

Lib died of cancer just a few hours before I won the professional division of the World Poker Tours Aruba tournament in October 2002. I am donating a portion of the proceeds from this work and all of my poker tournament successes to the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation (www.preventcancer.org) in her honor.

See, I have this picture in my head. Me sitting at the big table, Doyle Brunson on my left, Amarillo Slim to my right, playing in the World Series of Poker...

MATT DAMON AS MIKE MCDERMOTT, Rounders

I would like to thank all the Tiltboys (Rafe Furst, Dave Diceboy Lambert, Steve Miranda, Perry Friedman, Paul Swiencicki, Tony Glenning, Kim Scheinberg, John Kullman, Josh Paley Michael Stern, Lenny Augustine, Bruce Hayek, Russ Garber) for fifteen years of poker fun. Wednesday night, Tiltboy Poker Night, is still the best night of the week. The games of Spit-and-Shit Ding-a-Ling-with-a-Twist will always be among my favorite poker memories.

Of course, my friends and family have played a great role in everythingMom, Dad, and step-mom Ann, sister Ashley and brother-in-law Ryan, nephew Zakai and niece Anisa, Barb Smith, Rick Averitt, my grandmother Martha Lucas, and Shelby Driggers. Im also incredibly proud of my godchildren: Ben Philip Leader, Quinn and Savannah Averitt, Winnie Philana and Charlie Swiencicki. Thank you all for your love and support.

My best friend, Rafe Furst, deserves an entire chapter of dedication himself. We lived together for more than a year in a thirty-six-foot RV, traveling forty-two thousand miles around the country playing poker and going to sporting events. The trip we dubbed The Ultimate Sports Adventure was the best year of my life. Check out more than five thousand pictures and stories from the greatest road trip in sports history at www.ultimatesportsadventure.com.

In business, you need people who you can trust. I am very lucky to have some incredibly talented people on my side: my agent Jay Srinivasan, my PR guys Jack Glasure and the Glasure Group, the folks at NTN, and collaborators Luke Lincoln, P. J. ONeil, and Brian Efird. Thank you all for your hard work and friendship.

In every poker players life, there are people who have brought you along, sharing their knowledge, secrets, and experiences. My friends at FullTiltPoker.com are without doubt the best players in the world. Their tutelage and friendship is, in large part, responsible for my success in poker. Chris Jesus Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Erick Lindgren, and Andy Bloch are always willing to talk about hands, rejoice in successes, and sympathize with bad beats.

Theres little doubt that without the television show Celebrity Poker Showdown, many of you probably would not have been inclined to pick up this book. I want to thank the producers, Andy Newman, Josh Malina, Bryan Scott, and Marcia Mule, for the opportunity to bring poker to a wide audience. I also thank my co-hosts Dave Foley and Kevin Pollak for teaching me a little about TV and for listening to me talk about poker for hours and days on end. Lastly, I thank some of the celebrities whom Ive had a chance to tutor, befriend, and spend some time with: Ben Affleck, Hank Azaria, Michael Ian Black, Tim Busfield, Don Cheadle, David Cross, Shannon Elizabeth, Peter Facinelli, Willie Garson, Jeff Gordon, Lauren Graham, Tom Green, Penn Jillette, Ron Livingston, Seth Meyers, Dave Navarro, Emily Procter, Mimi Rogers, Paul Rudd, David Schwimmer, Nicole Sullivan, Mena Suvari, and Travis Tritt. Special thanks to my friend Jon Favreau, who wrote and starred in one of my favorite movies of all time, Swingers. Jon is a huge fan of poker and Im thrilled that he volunteered to write the introduction for this work.

And last but not least, there is no way I can ever sufficiently thank my co-author, Jonathan. Weve worked very closely on this project, and I have tremendous respect for his intellect, his game, and his writing. With his tireless efforts and interviews, I believe weve created an excellent work that adds to the pantheon of poker literature. Well be friends at and away from the table for a very long time. Thank you, Jonathan.

It all starts with the parents: Dad, who never tires of reminding me that his mother, a Brooklyn poker and pinochle sharp, always kept three hundred dollars pinned to the inside of her brassiere on the chance shed encounter an action game; and Mom, who taught me canasta and backgammon when I was seven, then how to play for money when I was eight, ensuring my indebtedness to her not only emotionally, but in the more literal sense of the word. Thanks for supporting me through all of my adventures. I love you both very much.

Could Storms Reback have known what kind of mess hed be getting us into when he sent me a photocopied article on the World Series of Poker, his handwritten notes scrawled all over the margins? The game has nourished us both beyond any reasonable expectations. Thank you, Storms, for being a friend, sounding board, and fellow traveler for almost half my life. (A debt of gratitude as well to the guy who wrote that article, Jim McManusyour lyrical take on the game was and continues to be an inspiration.)

Erick Brownstein and Bill Rotko believed I was a poker player long before I did. Judy Muller, defying every clich youve ever heard about mothers-in-law, surprised me with her early support, thanks in part to her meeting a real-life success story in the form of Annie Duke. Nor would I have kept writing without unwavering encouragement from Erick, Bill, and Judy, friends like Laurie Arent, Jesse Wigutow, and Marsha Cooke, and the weekly dose of constructive criticism and relentlessly obscene banter that could only come from